For tonight, the episode I am choosing is the first episode of Kolchak I ever saw: The Zombie.
I would say my first viewing was circa 1998, I was 14 years old, and my father had just picked up a VHS tape from a local book and music exchange store with two episodes on it; this was obviously one of them. I was intrigued, so he filled me in on what the show was about and knew that I would enjoy the zombie episode in particular because of my obsession with Voodoo. I have always been a huge fan of '70s TV shows, like the Night Gallery series, so this helped me get cozy with the characters, the music, and the overall look of the show. The theme song starts out kind of happy and light, but takes a darker turn when the title comes across the screen. When Kolchak types the word "victim" on his typewriter, I knew this show was going to get good. From the opening theme where Kolchak first appears whistling, written by the amazingly talented Gil Mellé (also of the aforementioned Night Gallery fame), to the montage of Kolchak in his Chicago office during the opening credits, I was instantly hooked. Once the episode officially started, I was ready!
Kolchak goes to investigate and take pics at the scene of a police shoot-out and gets nothing for his efforts. So that he isn't left empty-handed, Kolchak checks in with and pays Gordon "The Ghoul" Spangler who works at the morgue for information on the brothers who were killed in the barn shooting. Turns out one of the men pulled from the scene was a black man, not one of the brothers, who had already made an appearance in the morgue the previous week dead from six .44 magnum slugs. That's odd enough, but when he says that chicken blood was found on the body, this is when Kolchak's ears perk up. The other murders that have occurred are men belonging to an exclusive group of people in the city and their spines were snapped by someone with incredible strength.
Kolchak ends up on the South side of Chicago looking for number runners who are NOT part of the gang who is getting offed, and he finds them - one of which is played by the recognizable, tall and lanky actor Antonio Fargas, known for his roles in the Starsky and Hutch TV show and as Pam Grier's brother in Foxy Brown. Later, these men meet up with their higher-ups; these men ARE the ones being knocked off. They meet in a parking garage where Kolchak follows them and records their conversation, giving opportunity for a hilarious scene of Kolchak's tape recorder to go haywire and rewind right after the meeting has disbursed. Unfortunately for him, the recorder has given him away; he is found and a gun appears by his head. His tape is destroyed but he offers to help them find out who is killing off all of their men. He tells them that whoever was involved with the death of Francois Edmonds is being killed and those who are still living will soon be killed.
After digging a little bit, in AND out of the grave (just watch the episode), Kolchak tracks down Edmonds' mother Mamalois Edmonds (played by Paulene Myers in some interesting old age make-up) and pays her a visit. No information is really gained in his adventures to her house, until his departure where he finds a chicken carcass stuffed in the trash can in front of her house. This provokes more digging from Kolchak and he watches Mamalois grab a chicken from a cage and retreat to the Voodoo shrine in her storage building. As she holds her ritual, you can slightly make out his name being chanted by her and then after she cuts the chickens head off, she writes his name in blood on a small, wooden box. It appears that she wants Kolchak dead because of his involvement of the case and asking too many questions.
In fear for his life, Kolchak yet again does more digging. This time for information on how to defend himself from a zombie. He tells his boss and the captain how to kill a zombie off by pouring salt into the mouth of the zombie and sew its mouth shut while it sleeps. More humor ensues in this scene as the captain's retort suggests that next you would baste the body and eat it and Kolchak doesn't break his serious mood and replies, "No, you just light the candles around him." So what's next for Kolchak? Well, finding the body of Francois Edmonds of course.
The final five minutes of this episode will have you holding your breath and sitting on the edge of your seat. For its time, the zombie make-up is really effective and almost gory for a TV show in 1974. When Kolchak finds the body of the zombie in the back of a hearse in a junk yard, he commences with the salt experiment and gets as far as pouring the salt into its mouth, but once the needle hit the lips, its eyes open! Kolchak runs away terrified, and who wouldn't; the zombie is a lumbering juggernaut who could snap spines in two. As the zombie sits upright out of the hearse, the tension builds and your only thoughts are how the hell Kolchak is going to get out of this mess. Thanks to the junkyard's amenities, Kolchak runs on top of a car and as the zombie follows he hooks the zombie and it hangs over Kolchak's head in the final moments.
Going by an almost traditional recipe for zombies, this episode makes for great classic TV and makes me giggle now that zombies are commerce. This episode came at a time when knowledge on zombies were limited to the Voodoo religion. Keep in mind, only few people may have been exposed to George Romero's modern take on zombies at this time, so this was a startling thing to see on network television. If you haven't seen this episode, the entire thing is on youtube. I'll link it below.
As for Kolchak, expect more reviews of other episodes in later blogs as I simply LOVE this show and this character.
Enjoy!
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